No more discounting of Kerala’s 2.5-million migrant labourers. Though their ubiquitous presence does not really enthuse majority of Malayalis who are prone to condescendingly looking down on them as ‘the other,’ they will now play a reckonable role in the State’s polity.
Close to one-lakh of them have earned voting rights in the local bodies’ election this time.
While a substantial number of Tamil plantation workers and the floating population of language minorities in border districts had been enfranchised earlier, it is for the first time that the migrant community has grown to such a humungous level in elections.
This poll, they are on the electoral rolls in places such as Peerumedu, Udumbanchola and several parts of Munnar in Idukki, Neyyattinkara and Parassala in Thiruvananthapuram, Chittoor in Palakkad, Manjeswaram in Kasaragod and Kakkanad and Perumbavoor in Ernakulam, according to sources in the State Election Commission.
“They have been enrolled by electoral registration officers — EROs that number about 1,200 — using their quasi-judicial powers. The central electoral role published with January 1, 2015, as the qualifying date has several migrant workers figuring in it. A good number of migrants possessing local government ID proofs or residence certificates, or have proved their domicile status in the locality for sometime, may have been added by the EROs. In fact, there’s no stipulated period of stay that entitles someone to vote,” says K. Sasidharan Nair, State Election Commissioner.
It is widely acknowledged that there has been an influx of migrant labour into the State over the past five years. “But many of them are married and have settled here. The ERO only needs to see if the applicant has voting right elsewhere in the country. If an applicant’s claim is disputed, that is investigated. In places such as Vattavada in Munnar, scores of migrant workers have ration cards, Aadhar and the like. Is it fair to deny them the right to vote?” asks an official.
However, not everyone is okay with the development. Former legislator E.M. Augusthy has sought the Election Commission’s intervention to double-check the electoral enrolment in Udumbanchola taluk.
“Several workers on the list from Udumbanchola and Kumily are on electoral rolls of Tamil Nadu as well. I hope this will be duly addressed by the Election Commission,” says Mr. Augusthy, who had moved the commission in 2001 with a similar plaint.
